Speaker Cabinets

Despite what it might seem if you listen to a lot of pop music, guitars are still central to a vast majority of music styles. So, if guitar has anything to do with your music, getting the most out of your sessions is crucial to getting the mix right in the end.

Here, we’ll cover a few of the easiest ways you can maximize your guitar session.

Unless you’ve decided to try gigging with only a direct box and some pedals, you’re going to end up miking up a cabinet both on stage and in the studio. Of course, if you’re doing big gigs, the sound team will take care of it, and similarly in the studio, you may not have to think about it.

The Tone King demonstrates the features and sound of the new V112E guitar extension cabinet.

Even if you’ve matched your bass head and cab properly impedance wise and set your amp for clean sound, sending simply too much power to your bass cab can result in blown speakers. This often happens when you are using a rig you are unfamiliar with, as we tend to know the limitations of our own equipment and have chosen that setup for a reason. Borrowing another bassist’s amp or using a backline rig only to blow it up is definitely not a great feeling.

If you’re a bass player who rolls a heavy speaker cabinet to the gig, and once the cab is on the stage, you turn the cab on its side, or remove pop-out casters. This could be just what you have always done, or it could be to make the cab sit onstage with more stability (ever played on a slanted or uneven stage?)

Carvin Audio offers a free impedance calculator application that calculates the total impedance of all cabinets in your load. So if you want to double check your math or just don’t want to do math, this handy app is a lifesaver! 

Aside from drummers, bassists generally have the most weight to carry at load-in. Bassists stand out among the rest of the band with their huge, heavy bass cabinets that often take two people to move and have a huge onstage footprint. Of course, smaller combos do just fine at smaller venues, but there are still some bassists who prefer the headroom of a “big rig” in nearly any gigging situation. These players, contrary to popular belief, are not necessarily egocentric showoffs who like to have the biggest rig onstage and the loudest instrument in the mix- in fact, there are many reasons why a big rig can help support the overall sound of the band.

In the first part of this article we learned the basics of configuring extension speakers- as long as you know the total impedance load of your cabinet(s).

So How Do You Calculate the Total Impedance Load?

No matter which speaker configuration you select, if you're playing in different venues chances are you'll eventually want to use different cabinets or an extension speaker. Perhaps you chose a combo amp for the convenience and portability, but your next performance will be on a wide stage where you might not be able to hear your amp from the other side. An additional cabinet on the other side of the stage could be a very nice solution (and your bandmates who play over there might appreciate being able to hear you without having to add you to their crucial monitor mix). At first glance, it seems simple enough, after all your amp does have an extension speaker jack, so you might wonder, "Can't I just plug in there and crank it up?" In general you usually can do just that, but there are some things you need to know to get a good result and to protect your amp from damage. Before we look at how different speaker combinations affect the impedance load your amp has to carry, we need to know what's going on.

Many bassists looking to get more bottom out of their bass rig have considered adding a bass cabinet with a bigger speaker, such as a 1x15 (or maybe even a 1x18)! Cabinets like these have a popular reputation for providing more low end than their smaller counterparts, such as 2x10, 4x10 and 2x12 cabinets. Similarly, it’s commonly perceived that smaller speakers have more high-end and a quicker response, so players looking for a more articulate sound may gravitate to a cabinet equipped with smaller speakers.